If the UB women’s tennis team were fluent in any
one language, it would be food. And despite the fact that none of
the seven players is from China, their top pick for a team dinner
is a Chinese restaurant. “We love it because it has a little
bit of everyone’s culture,” says Miranda Podlas, a
senior communication major from Buffalo, N.Y.

The players—who hail from India, Bulgaria, Spain, Germany,
Colombia and the U.S.—view themselves as ordinary American
college girls. It’s a fairly easy outlook to adopt at UB,
where approximately 1,880 new international students enrolled last
fall.

Even so, Marta Stoyanova, a senior business major from Ruse,
Bulgaria, was initially concerned that she would be the lone
international player on the team. When she found out how diverse
the team was, she felt right at home.

Now, she and the three other seniors on the team share an
apartment, often inviting the remaining players over for movie
nights. Their tight bond helps in their tennis matches, says
Anamaria Candanoza, a senior business major from Santa Marta,
Colombia, who won the Charlie Flight singles championship at the
USAFA Women’s Tennis Invitational in September 2013.
“Being so close makes you feel more comfortable on the
court.”

The players do have a few simple team rules. There’s no
judging one another for eating ice cream before and/or after
practice, and the road trip soundtrack is primarily Spanish and
reggae music.

“We’re such a small group,” says head coach
Kristen Ortman Maines (EdM ’08, BA ’06), a former
student-athlete. “We eat all our meals together and learn so
much about each other so quickly that I don’t think about it
as ‘Anamaria is from Colombia and Tanvi is from
India.’”

In fact, the women say they rarely notice their cultural
differences. “We’ll talk about things from home, but
mostly we don’t see ourselves as individuals,” says
Stoyanova. “We’re the UB Bulls!”